Rwandan Troops Kill Refugees In Raid On Camp

Dozens Died On The Hill Where Hutus Gathered After The Government Closed Their Camps.

April 23, 1995|By New York Times

KIBEHO, RWANDA — Dozens were killed and hundreds wounded Saturday when Rwandan government forces opened fire on a makeshift camp here where tens of thousands of ethnic Hutu refugees had been moved in the past few days.

There was no firm death toll. Loose estimates were expected to rise overnight as medical workers and family members sorted through the carnage.

It was unclear how the shooting began. But the gunfire quickly ignited panic in the crowded hillside encampment, with Hutu militiamen also firing at government forces and at U.N. troops, Australian medical officers with the U.N. force here said.

Rwandan soldiers chased people through the fields and into the hills, shooting them with automatic weapons. Thousands of refugees fled the site, clogging the muddy roads toward Gikongoro, the main town.

The heavy rains and crowds made it difficult for aid workers to reach the area by car, and the only access was by U.N. helicopter.

''It's like a chicken shoot. They go running after them and shoot. About four soldiers run after one guy and then shoot him. It's horrible,'' said Capt. Carol Vaughan-Evans, a doctor with the Australian Medical Corps

The refugees, all members of the Hutu ethnic majority, had begun gathering on the hillside last week after the government started closing down camps that sheltered more than 150,000 people.

The camps were set up last summer by the French military as part of a safe area for Hutus fleeing an advancing rebel Tutsi army. Human rights and U.N. officials say many of those Hutu were involved in the ethnic massacres last year that left half a million Rwandans, mostly Tutsi, dead.

Since last summer the majority of the Hutus have refused to leave the camps, saying they feared reprisals from government soldiers.

The government claimed the camps were a potential threat because they were home to thousands of armed Hutu militiamen.